Friday, August 31, 2012

Austrian Times

A boozed up groom, 27, was caught having sex with a waitress in the kitchen at his wedding reception just hours after tying the knot in Feldkirch, Austria.
The groom was caught by the father of the bride when he went looking for him in the kitchen.
After seeing what the young man was doing he stopped the party, and told all the guests to go home.
The bride now wants a quick divorce – but has been told she will have to wait six months under Austrian law.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Roberto Saviano

Dans de nombreux pays occidentaux, la lutte contre le trafic de drogue se fait à reculons, surtout en temps de crise, quand la liquidité monétaire est vue comme une oasis dans le désert.
(Sans surprise, la mafia est très présente en Italie et dispose de 65 milliards d'euros de liquidités chaque année.) Les organisation criminelles siphonnent 100 milliards d'euros de l'économie légale, une somme équivalente à 7 % du produit intérieur brut (PIB italien). L'argent finit dans les mains des mafiosi plutôt qu'à l'Etat ou des Italiens qui respectent la loi, eux.
(Les coupures de 500 euros représentent 70 % de la valeur totale des billets en circulation en Espagne.) En 2006, la Banque centrale espagnole avait enquêté sur le grand nombre de billets de 500 euros en circulation, explique-t-il. Les organisations criminelles les aiment car ils ne prennent pas beaucoup de place. Un petit coffre-fort de 45 centimètres de long peut accueillir jusqu'à 10 millions d'euros.

Jens Kastner

The first aircraft carrier for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) is expected to enter service before October 1, the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But what’s still missing is a name for the steely monster that was originally bought as scrap from Ukraine and has since been refurbished in a Chinese shipyard in northeastern Dalian city.
A Confucian mantra “名不正则言不顺,言不顺则事不成” roughly translates as “If something is not named properly, then it can hardly be justified in argument. If something is not properly justified, then it can hardly achieve its aim.” According to the ancient Chinese sage, names of things must be chosen with utmost care because without the proper names, societies crumble and sacred national undertakings stand no chance of being completed.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Survival

Goldminers in Venezuela have carried out a ‘massacre’ of isolated Yanomami Indians, according to reports received by Survival International.

Witnesses of the aftermath described finding ‘burnt bodies and bones’ when they visited the community of Irotatheri in the country’s Momoi region, close to the border with Brazil.
Initial reports suggest up to 80 people have been killed, but these numbers are impossible to confirm. Only three survivors have been found.

Due to the community’s remote location, it took the Indians who discovered the bodies days to walk to the nearest settlement to report the tragedy.

SPACE.com

Space Sugar Discovered Around Sun-Like Star

This image shows the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region in infrared light, as seen by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE). IRAS 16293-2422 is the red object in the center of the small square. The inset image is an artist’s impression of glycolaldehyde molecules, showing glycolaldehyde’s molecular structure.

借金返済.com

「借金を返済しなければならない」「利息も払わなければならない」そうなると毎日の生活もとても辛いものになってきます。最近では借金に苦しんでいる人の数は150万人以上もいると言われています。
不景気、物価上昇、安月給が続いていることが関係しているせいなのか、昔に比べると日本で借金をしている方はとても増えています。また、借金返済に関する相談に行く方も年々増えていると言われています。
借金返済が苦しいけど身近な人にも相談出来ないし、利息ばかりで借金は減らなくて悩んでいる方も数多くいます。借金の返済が出来なくなってしまってどうすればいいのか分からない方はたくさんいるのです。
悲しい話ですが、借金の返済が出来なくなり違法な取立てに遭い、それを苦に自分で命を落としてしまう方もいます。そういった背景があるため、最近では借金返済について相談することが出来る窓口なども増えています。こちらは無料のところもあれば有料のところもあります。それだけ借金に悩む人達が社会問題になっているということでしょう。

Emmanuel Todd

Quant à Genève, c’est une grande ville francophone qui a un tel rôle international. Genève est une vraie chance pour la France. Si la France veut se suicider elle n’a qu’à critiquer Genève. Ou Bruxelles. La France doit immensément plus qu’elle ne le croit à ces deux grandes villes francophones qui échappent à l’influence de Paris. Car sans elles, avec son centralisme, la France serait morte depuis longtemps.

William Kingdon Clifford

What is meant by scientific thought? For scientific thought does not mean thought about scientific subjects with long names. There are no scientific subjects. The subject of science is the human universe; that is to say, everything that is, or has been, or may be related to man. …
When, then, we say that the uniformity which we observe in the course of events is exact and universal, we mean no more than this: that we are able to state general rules which are far more exact than direct experiment, and which apply to all cases that we are at present likely to come across. It is important to notice, however, the effect of such exactness as we observe upon the nature of inference. …
It is possible that by-and-by, when psychology has made enormous advances and become an exact science, we may be able to give to testimony the sort of weight which we give to the inferences of physical science. It will then be possible to conceive a case which will show how completely the whole process of inference depends on our assumption of uniformity.

水野和夫

五〇〇年におよぶ近代資本主義を駆動させてきた諸条件は、現在、急速に失効しつつある。交易条件しかり、海外市場の開拓しかり、人口増加しかり。そしてこれらのことは、決して一過性の問題ではなく、中世封建社会の崩壊と匹敵するような局面にわれわれは立たされているというのが、… 共通した認識だと思う。
このような時代の転換点において、近代資本主義の枠内だけの道具では、問題を解決することは不可能だろう。デフレという問題ひとつとっても、お金を刷れば一挙解決といった処方箋は、グローバル化した経済を見誤っている典型のように思われる。

池谷奉文

  • 福島の人とは結婚しない方がいい
  • 福島では発がん率が上がり、奇形児が生まれる懸念がある
  • 茨城など放射能雲の通った地域にいた方々は極力結婚しない方がいいだろう
  • 結婚して子どもを産むと、奇形発生率がドーンと上がる
  • 被曝で遺伝子損傷と奇形児出産のリスクが高まることを訴えた
  • 一般論として私の見解を話した。差別する意図はなかった

Richard L. Armitage, Joseph S. Nye

Current discourse on Japan is plagued with diction on “crises,” “challenges,” and “indecision.” While these words may suggest a nation in decline, we do not believe that is a foregone conclusion. It is our view that Japan is at a critical juncture. Japan has the power to decide between complacency and leadership at a time of strategic importance. With the dynamic changes taking place throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Japan will likely never have the same opportunity to help guide the fate of the region. In choosing leadership, Japan can secure her status as a tier-one nation and her necessary role as an equal partner in the alliance.
In a new roles and missions review, Japan should expand the scope of her responsibilities to include the defense of Japan and defense with the United States in regional contingencies. The allies require more robust, shared, and interoperable ISR capabilities and operations that extend well beyond Japanese territory. It would be a responsible authorization on the part of Japan to allow U.S. forces and JSDF to respond in full cooperation throughout the security spectrum of peacetime, tension, crisis, and war.

The Chosun Ilbo

South Korea and China mark 20 years of diplomatic relations on Friday. Bilateral trade, which amounted to US$6.4 billion in 1992 increased 35-fold to $220.6 billion last year. That is more than South Korea’s bilateral trade with the U.S. and Japan combined. Every year, more than 5 million South Koreans and Chinese visit the other country.
The next 20 years in relations will be crucial in the fate of South Korea, bringing challenges such as Korean reunification. South Korea-China relations move in sync with inter-Korean and U.S.-South Korean relations, and Seoul has limited options when it comes to using its ties with Beijing to achieve its goals. Yet it must try to steer Seoul-Beijing relations in a direction that best meets its national interests. That requires long-term vision and decisiveness.

Bertrand Russell

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness–that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

Matt Lynley

Google is considered one of the most fun places to work. ... So why would you leave?
  • If you aren't an engineer, get ready to be below everyone else.
  • Sometimes, it's time to move on.
  • If you're at a satellite office, you might feel disconnected.
  • Some go for the bigger, better offers.
  • Some are feeling the entrepreneurial itch.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Julie Kummer

Alors qu’il traversait un passage de sécurité, mardi vers 07h10 à Peyres-Possens, un adolescent de 13 ans a été renversé par une voiture. La conductrice, vraisemblablement éblouie par le soleil, a heurté violemment le jeune homme.

Wikipedia

There’s no such thing as objectivity. Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that. So, how can we take the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy seriously?
This most common objection to the neutrality policy also reflects the most common misunderstanding of the policy. The NPOV policy says nothing about objectivity. In particular, the policy does not say that there is such a thing as objectivity in a philosophical sense—a “view from nowhere” (to use Thomas Nagel’s phrase), such that articles written from that viewpoint are consequently objectively true. That is not the policy, and it is not our aim! Rather, to be neutral is to describe debates rather than engage in them. In other words, when discussing a subject, we should report what people have said about it rather than what is so. This is not to say anything philosophically contentious; indeed, philosophers describe debates all the time. Even sophisticated relativists will immediately recognize that “neutrality”, in this sense, is perfectly consistent with their philosophy.

田幸和歌子

尾崎紅葉の『金色夜叉』――作者名と作品名、「貫一・お宮」の名前などは知っているという人が多いだろう。
また、熱海の海岸で貫一が宮を蹴り倒す場面、「来年の今月今夜になったならば、僕の涙で必ず月は曇らして見せるから」という名ゼリフも、テレビやマンガなどのパロディで知っているという人も多いかもしれない。
だが、作品を全編通して読んだことのある人は、かなり少ないと思う。

Steve Jones

Biologists have a dirty little secret: while practically everyone knows of The Origin of Species (and owes much to it), almost nobody has read it.

John Alcock

Despite competition between males for mates, it is females who retain primary control over reproduction. This is due to the fact that she alone produces eggs and exerts a great deal of control over which male’s sperm will fertilize her eggs. A variety of factors come into play when a female decides which male she will allow to inseminate her–male resources, male appearance, and courtship displays all play roles. Males have evolved elaborate ways of influencing female behavior, and this evolutionary process has, over time, produced more and more effective operators in the arena of sexual interaction.

Eric R. Pianka

Plants and animals have adapted to their environments genetically and by means of physiological, behavioral, or developmental flexibility, including both instinctive behavior and learning. Adaptation has many dimensions in that most organisms must conform simultaneously to numerous different aspects of their environments. Adaptation involves coping not only with the physical abiotic environment (light, dark, temperature, water, wind), but also with the complex biotic environment (other organisms such as mates, competitors, parasites , predators, and escape tactics of prey).
Every individual is simultaneously a member of a population, a species, and a community; therefore, it must be adapted to cope with each and must be considered in that context. An individual's fitness — its ability to perpetuate itself as measured by its reproductive success — is greatly influenced by its status within its own population. An individual might be a resident or a vagrant, mated or unmated, or high or low in a pecking order, all factors that strongly affect its fitness.
Ultimately, natural selection operates only by differential reproductive success. An individual's ability to perpetuate itself as measured by its reproductive success is known as its Darwinian fitness.

Ronald Dore

Discussions of globalisation centre on one of the following aspects:
  1. How integrated global markets really are.
  2. Globalisation as a process eroding the sovereignty of nation-states, reducing their autonomy in making economic policy.
  3. The consequences of globalisation for the distribution of income among the world' s population, both within and among nations.
  4. The problematic growth of a transnational "world society" and international governance.
  5. The interaction of national economic, political, military and cultural power, and the possibility and desirability of retaining distinctive national institutions, embodying distinctive national value preferences and cultures.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Confederation of British Industry

英国博覧会
1965年09月17日~1965年10月03日
晴海・東京国際貿易センター

特別会場では毎日新聞社の主催で「チャーチル展」が開かれ、その偉大な生涯と業績をしのぶ数々の遺品を集めて展示した。

英国博覧会場では、朝日新聞社後援によるスカート姿のスコットランド軍楽隊の演奏とハイランド郷土舞踊を披露。。。

tragicclown

Churchill, not Hitler, was the first to bomb civilian targets behind enemy lines. Chuchill initiated the stratigic bombing campaign and deliberately turned WWII in the West from a war between combatants to an unlimited war of terror and brutality against civilians, and he did this at a point where Germany was bound to have an absolute defeat regardless.
He killed 50,000 civilians in Hamburg with fire-bombs.
He killed 150,000-250,000 civilians in Dresden. The British first droped high explosives on the German residences, then they droped phosphorus bombs in order to create a firestorm to anahilate every living thing in Germany’s most beautiful city.
In 1910 as Home Secretary he suggested force sterilization for 100,000 “degenerate Britons” in order to protect the “race.”
How about when Chuchill ordered the Kurds and Iraqis to be gassed (and shot and blown up and fire bombed and shrapnel bombed) during the rebellion in 1920 against British colonial rule when he was minister of war.

jartello


En las entrañas del campamento más peligroso de Haití, los reporteros de El Universal realizan una muy buena investigación periodística. Video: Agencia de El Universal. Todos los derechos reservados.

Leo Szilard

Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?

Paul Rogers

Words are slippery. Like Humpty Dumpty proclaimed in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Certainly the common usage of the words encapsulation and information hiding seems to follow that logic. Authors rarely distinguish between the two and often directly claim they are the same.
Does that make it so? Not for me. Were it simply a matter of words, I wouldn’t write another word on the matter. But there are two distinct concepts behind these terms, concepts engendered separately and best understood separately.
Encapsulation refers to the bundling of data with the methods that operate on that data. Often that definition is misconstrued to mean that the data is somehow hidden. In Java, you can have encapsulated data that is not hidden at all.
However, hiding data is not the full extent of information hiding. David Parnas first introduced the concept of information hiding around 1972. He argued that the primary criteria for system modularization should concern the hiding of critical design decisions. He stressed hiding “difficult design decisions or design decisions which are likely to change.” Hiding information in that manner isolates clients from requiring intimate knowledge of the design to use a module, and from the effects of changing those decisions.

Lewis Carroll

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.
 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center

Harry S. Truman

On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make “good use of it against the Japanese.”

Mikhail Klochko

Joseph Stalin’s drive to build a Soviet atomic bomb may have cost more lives than those lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
On 29 December 1962, many scientists, engineers and workers in the Soviet Union read with cynicism an article in Pravda about the toll of radiation-induced diseases among the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nearly 20 years after the atomic bombs dropped, Japanese people were still dying. But the people who had worked on Joseph Stalin’s atom bomb project in the 1940s and 1950s already knew well the perils of radiation — despite the heavy veil of secrecy surrounding the issue. “Why point the finger at Japan,” many readers of the article must have thought, “when in the USSR itself countless people suffer from the same diseases and thousands have died from them.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.

黒木雄司

ニューディリー放送が、原爆に関連して、まず昭和二十年六月一日、スチムソン委員会が全会一致で日本に原子爆弾投下を米国大統領に勧告したこと、次に七月十五日、世界で初めての原子爆弾核爆発の実験成功のことを報じた。
さらに八月三日、原子爆弾第一号として八月六日広島に投下することが決定し、投下後どうなるか詳しい予告を三日はもちろん、四日も五日も毎日つづけて朝と昼と晩の三回延べ九回の予告放送をし、長崎原爆投下も二日前から同様に毎日三回ずつ原爆投下とその影響などを予告してきた。

Ian Shoesmith, Jon Kelly

It’s 70 years since Germany launched one of the most devastating bombing raids of World War II, on Coventry. But did Winston Churchill have prior warning of the attack?
It has been claimed in a number of books that the wartime prime minister knew that the city was to be targeted by the German Luftwaffe, but chose to do nothing because it would have alerted Adolf Hitler to the fact the Allies had recently cracked the Nazis’ top-secret Enigma codes.
Coventry and its people were sacrificed, the theory goes, “for the greater good” – that is, that the benefits of playing the long game outweighed the short-term costs of leaving the West Midlands city to a terrible fate.
It’s not just historians who have written about the so-called Coventry conspiracy, though – it’s a theory which lives on to this day.

Winston Churchill

There were those who considered that the atomic bomb should never have been used at all. I cannot associate myself with such ideas… I am surprised that very worthy people—but people who in most cases had no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves—should adopt a position that rather than throw this bomb we should have sacrificed a million American and a quarter of a million British lives…

産経新聞

政府は27日までに、福島県以外の全国3カ所で、18歳以下の4500人を対象に甲状腺超音波検査の実施を決めた。東京電力福島第1原発事故を受け、福島県内の18歳以下の子供を対象に行っている検査では約36%の子供の甲状腺にしこりなどが見つかり、これらが事故による影響かどうかを見極めるためデータを集める。
内閣府原子力被災者生活支援チーム医療班は「良性のしこりは健康な人にもよく見られるものだが、疫学的な調査がこれまでにない。福島県からできるだけ遠く、放射線の影響がない場所で調べる」と話している。
同チームによると、福島県内で行っている検査と同様の方法で、来年3月まで実施。日本甲状腺学会などの専門医が担当し、疫学の専門家も加えて結果を検討する。

IAEA

Given the extreme circumstances of this accident the local management of the accident has been conducted in the best way possible and following Fundamental Safety Principle 3.

名無しさん@13周年

  • 原子力安全・保安院が IAEA へ提出した報告によれば、福島第1原発から放出した放射性核種の総量は31核種で 1134 京 6725 兆 4417 億 Bq。
  • 1134 京 Bq という量は、チェルノブイリ原発事故での放出量 1400 京 Bqより少ない。
  • 1134 京 Bq は、放出された 1,000 種類もの放射性同位体のうちの僅か31種類の合計に過ぎない。この31種類には、水溶性のトリチウム(体内被曝の最大原因になる)も、クリプトン85 (発癌物質)も、放射性ヨウ素 135(放出量がとても多かった)も含まれていない。
  • 1134 京 Bq は、3月11日の事故発生から僅か 150 時間だけの数字に過ぎない。
  • 1134 京 Bq は、1~3号機から放出した分だけで、4号機の放出分は含まれていない。(3号機の使用済み燃料プールには使用済み・未使用のウラン燃料が566本あり、続いて爆発した4号機の炉心には548本あった。)
  • 1134 京 Bq には、1~3号機の使用済み燃料プールからの放出分は含まれていない。
  • 1134 京 Bq には、海に流出した分や地下に流失した分は含まれない。

淡路恵子


私興味あるのはね、やっぱ、ドラゴンクエスト。あのね、ドラゴンは好きなのね。うーん。
ま、腱鞘炎になったり。もうだって26年間やり続けてるんだもの。
(最近出た、USBメモリーとネット環境が必要な「ドラゴンクエストX オンライン」は)
ああ、あれはね、あれはすごく怒ってるの。あれは一人でね、楽しんでやるものなの。
それを誰と繋がる?今、ほら、やたらと繋がる繋がるって言葉が流行でしょ。私ああいう言葉、あんまり好きじゃないの。繋がらなくっていいの!ゲームなんて自分でやればいいの!何で他人?見たこともない人と。私あれもやらないの、メールとか、そういうの、一切やらないけど。
今度それをやりたいためには、なんとかってものを買わなきゃいけない。Wiiは買ったけども。
それだけじゃ済まないっていうっていう。。。オンラインにしないとゲームが進行しない。
子供は買えない。だって、ゲームする度に何千円って掛かるのよ。あれはダメ。

Las Vegas Convention and Vistors Authority

Let it be known by all that you’re an honest and trustworthy Las Vegas Traveling companion.

I promise to follow the code of Las Vegas by not tweeting, tagging, posting, telling, whispering, emoting, defining, drawing up, writing about or in any way revealing the all-powerful What Happens Here, Stays Here® moment of me or anyone else in my party to others not on said trip during or at any time after said trip’s duration – i.e.: The moment being the part or parts of the trip that should stay in Las Vegas. The other parts are fine … So sayeth this person.

James R. Holmes

Despite Japan’s latter-day image as a military pushover, a naval war would not be a rout for China. While the Japanese postwar “peace” constitution “forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) has accumulated several pockets of material excellence, such as undersea warfare, since World War II. And Japanese mariners are renowned for their professionalism. If commanders manage their human, material, and geographic advantages artfully, Tokyo could make a maritime war with China a close-run thing — and perhaps even prevail.

藤田嗣治


サイパン島同胞臣節を全うす
 

ウィキペディア

軍国美談は、明治末から昭和初期にかけての日本で広く知らされたエピソードで、日清戦争、日露戦争、満州事変、日中戦争、太平洋戦争における軍人、兵士、銃後の人々が題材となっている。新聞報道や軍人の手記などから生まれ、それを元にした流行歌、映画、伝記・小説から歌舞伎、講談、落語なども作られることがあり、学校教科書などの教材として使われることも多かった。英雄的に殉職した軍人は軍神とも呼ばれた。。。
美談は、政府や軍関係者が広めようとしたものもあったが、多くは新聞報道と民衆の支持によって物語化されていった。
満州事変開始以降は、将兵の戦死や美談が数多く報道され、日露戦争時から比べると映画、ラジオ、レコードなどのメディアもこれに加わっていた点で変化がある。これらの中には涙を誘う悲劇としての他に、欧米に対する日本人の精神性の象徴として捉える論調も多く現れた。教科書で取り上げられた以外にも、雑誌や教師による訓話などで、子供達に大きな影響を与えた。美談を集めた出版もなされ、『満州事変軍事美談集』や、教育雑誌『教育時論』の「戦時美談」欄などがあった。

Robert Sherrod

War is a horribly fascinating thing.

To the marines on Saipan, the suicide of Japanese soldiers in the last days of the battle for the island, was an old story. But there were 20,000 civilians on the island, too, and many of them elected to die for the Emperor, or perhaps to escape a conqueror represented by Jap propaganda as hideously brutal. In this dispatch, TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod describes the gruesome deeds, incomprehensible to the occidental mind, which followed the U.S. victory: We thought we had seen everything in the line of Jap military suicides by the time the last charge of the Japs had been beaten…

Forbes

The eurozone crisis is over two years old now. It’s no longer crawling. This baby is walking and has a mind all her own. And my, what an ugly little critter this kid is, isn’t she?
Ask a money manager from London to New York when the crisis will be done and they will tell you within the next two years, with the most dire saying that it will end only when France is in the spotlight with all her mega government debt, as bad or worse than Italy’s.
When will it end? Nobody’s knows! But it won’t end this year, and probably not next year either.

新华社

哈尔滨阳明滩大桥断裂

新桥“不堪一压”,是设计缺陷,还是工程质量问题?尽管调查仍在进行,但阳明滩大桥的“前世今生”,以及哈尔滨市连日来发生的市政工程事故,已经成为媒体和网民关注的焦点。

Hillary Clinton

We are engaged in an information war. During the Cold War, we did a great job in getting America’s message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, okay, fine, enough of that. We’ve done it. We’re done. And unfortunately, we are paying a big price for it. And our private media cannot fill that gap. In fact, our private media, particularly cultural programming, often works at counterpurposes to what we truly are as Americans and what our values are. I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis. Because the only TV he ever saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling. So we are in an information war. And we are losing that war. I’ll be very blunt in my assessment. Al-Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up a global English-language and multi-language television network. The Russians have opened up an English-language network. I’ve seen it in a few countries, and it’s quite instructive. We are cutting back. The BBC is cutting back. So here’s what we are trying to do. In the State Department, we have pushed very hard on new media. So we have an Arabic Twitter feed. We have a Farsi Twitter feed. I have this group of young techno-experts who are out there engaging on websites and we’re putting all of our young Arabic-speaking diplomats out, so that they are talking about our values. Walter is working hard with his Board to try to transform the broadcasting efforts. Because most people still get their news from TV and radio. So even though we’re pushing online, we can’t forget TV and radio. And so I look — I would look very much towards your cooperation, to try to figure out how we get back in the game on this. Because I hate ceding what we are most expert in to anybody else.

Hillary Clinton

We're the most technologically advanced country in the world, so slowly but surely we've been trying to take back the airwaves in Afghanistan against Taliban with the most primitive kind of communication equipment. Now, take that as one example where I don't think we were very competitive, and we have worked like crazy to change that, and then go to the most extreme where you've got a global, a set of global networks, that al-Jazeera has been the leader in, that are literally changing people's minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effective. And in fact viewership of al-Jazeera is going up in the US because it's real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.

Ciro Messere

Bella Napoli
Italia

张晓梅

老婆做家务,老公应发工资

Eleanor Harding

Women have long suspected they still do more of the housework than their husbands.
And the next time there’s a row over the chores, they’ll have proof.
Eight out of ten married women do more housework than their partners, according to figures compiled by the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Only 3 per cent of married women spend fewer than three hours a week on housework, with almost half doing 13 hours or more.
The think tank found only one in ten married men do the same amount as their wives. Around the same proportion do more.
Experts say the gender imbalance is still alive in the British household and are calling for men to do their fair share. The revolution in gender roles is unfinished business.

Friday, August 24, 2012

鶴見済

ぼくらは経済の奴隷じゃない!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

letatlin

精神を病んだ人たちの集まり、と誰かが指摘していたが、ムーミン谷の住人達は恐ろしく不完全で、みな、何かしら問題を抱えこんでいる。それはヘムレンさんのエピソードに顕著で、本来、ヘムレンさんは、主人公サイドに属する行動原理を忠実に実行しているだけなのに、ムーミントロール筆頭に、うざったい奴扱いである。ムーミントロールは冬の世界の中で、自分の価値観の揺らぎを感じて怯える。逆らおうとしてあれこれ画策しても、やることなすこと失敗ばかりである。まあ自己中のミイだけは相変わらずなのであるが。
そこで、おしゃまさんである。おしゃまさんは冬の倫理をムーミントロールに教える役割を担う。スナフキンは辛抱たまらず放浪の旅に出てしまうわけであるが、おしゃまさんはめげることなく困ったちゃん達の面倒を見続けるし、それがおしゃまさんの強さ、魅力として描かれる。
ムーミン谷には不愉快な人物、理不尽な問題を抱えた人物達で満ち満ちていて、それに対する現実的なソリューションとして、彼らをありのままに受け入れよ、という解答が作品世界中で常に示される。ムーミン谷には真の悪人はいない。氷姫にしたところで、子リスを殺そうと思ったわけでなく、愚かな子リスが氷姫の領分に無遠慮に踏み込んでしまったがために事件が起こる。

石橋秀仁

没入観を得るための Virtual Reality 技術や Artificial Reality 技術などの意味での Virtual は Real の対極ではない。逆に、限りなく Real に近い状態だ。
ここでは Reality を増した結果を Virtual と呼んでいることになるので、Real と Virtual がほぼ同義語になっている。
デフォルメされたアバターによりコミュニケーションする SNS などを Virtual と呼ぶのは Virtue を Abstract するという感じだ。
ここでは Reality を減らした結果を Virtual と呼んでいることになるので、Virtual と Real がほぼ対義語になっている。

イケダハヤト

「その人に面と向かって言えないことは、オンラインでも言わない」という方針を僕はおすすめしています。そして僕自身もここはストイックに実践しています。
様々な弊害がありますが、面と向かって言えないことをオンライン空間「だから」その人に伝えられるということは、自分という存在を裏切る行為だと思うんですよね。
本来人間がひとりあれば、オンラインで顔が見えなかろうと、オフラインで対面してようと、態度は変わらないはずです。
これからの時代、オンライン/オフラインは融合し、境目はなくなっていきます。そういう観点からみると「顔が見えないオンラインだから失礼なことも言える」というのは、21世紀的な態度でもないといえるでしょう。2chだけがインターネットの世界だったら、それでも良かったかもしれませんが。

湯川鶴章

これまでわたしは何度も、ソーシャルメディアを「バーチャル・オープン」と「リアル・クローズド」の2種類に分けて議論し、「リアル・クローズド」なソーシャルメディアが「バーチャル・オープン」をはるかに超える伝播力、熱量を持つ、と主張し続けてきた。どこのだれだか分からない人とのコミュニケーションより、リアルな友人とのコミュニケーションのほうが圧倒的に盛り上がるのは、当たり前の話だからだ。今回スタートしたMangafulDaysは、この「リアル・クローズド」に主軸を置いたサービス。これは盛り上がらないわけがないと思う。ぜひリアルな友人と一緒に参加してリアル・クローズドのパワーを実感してもらいたいと思う。

リアルビズ

Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office

The Department of Defense (DoD) Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (M&SCO) is the focal point for coordinating all matters regarding modeling and simulation across the DoD for the Undersecretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) (USD(AT&L)). Modeling and simulation (M&S) is an enabler of warfighting capabilities. It helps to save lives, to save taxpayer dollars, and to improve operational readiness. M&SCO assists the DoD to use M&S in a cost-effective manner through tools, policies, standards, guidance, and collaborative forums.

Training simulations typically come in one of three categories:
  • “live” simulation (where actual players use genuine systems in a real environment);
  • “virtual” simulation (where actual players use simulated systems in a synthetic environment), or
  • “constructive” simulation (where simulated players use simulated systems in a synthetic environment). Constructive simulation is often referred to as “wargaming” since it bears some resemblance to table-top war games in which players command armies of soldiers and equipment that move around a board.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Calytrix

Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) synthetic environment

中江章浩

私-中江章浩は、厚生労働省で長らく仕事をしていましたが、外交官や国際機関職員などとして外から日本社会をみる経験が多かったことから、日本の将来に危機感を持つとともに現在の官僚機構のあり方に限界を感じ、その打開のためには、一挙に全国規模でものを考えるのではなく、一定の地域から社会変革を進めていくしかないと考え、ある自治体の首長選挙にチャレンジして失敗し、はからずも教鞭をとらせていただいている者です。本講座では、このような私の個人的な体験をもとに、社会保障についての裏話を披露させていただき、受講者が物事の裏面を見抜ける人間になることを目標にします。

大阪維新の会

平成8年から平成18年の10年で、大阪府総生産は、2.41兆円減少している。
大阪府民の一人当たりの所得は、357万円から308万円へ約49万円減少している。
大阪市民の一人当たりの所得は、412万円から344万円へ約68万円減少している。
東京都民の一人当たりの所得は、427万円から482万円へ約55万円増加している。
大阪市民と東京都民の所得の差は、約15万円から約140万円へと拡がってしまった。
大阪では、優秀な人材の流入や将来性のある企業立地を促すこともできず、企業流出に歯止めをかけることもできなかった。その結果、多くの生活指標が悪化し(全国最高の生活保護率、低い消費支出、高い完全失業率等)、貧困家庭の子弟が十分な教育を受けられず、そのため世代を超えて貧困から抜け出せない、いわゆる貧困の再生産という最悪の事態が進行している。
大阪は一地域でありながらアジアや中東の中規模国家、例えば台湾やサウジアラビア並みのGDPを擁している(府内GDPは約38兆円)。
環境、エネルギー、エレクトロニクス等の分野では世界をリードする技術を誇り、産業基盤も充実している。これからの日本経済を牽引できる潜在可能性は十分ある。
いまこそ、地域が自らの発展を戦略的に目指すことのできる枠組みを構築する必要がある。

Miuccia Prada

Clothes have nothing to do with success. You can dress however you want and still be successful. Basically, clothes are a pleasure.
And as a luxury item, clothes are the cheapest. Why are people scandalized by spending money on clothes? I think there is something against fashion in the world. Everybody is so passionate about this, there’s a resistance to fashion, an idea that to love fashion is to be stupid. I think this is for two reasons. One is because clothes are very intimate. When you get dressed, you are making public your idea about yourself, and I think that embarrasses people. And two, I think that fashion is seen as women’s work. My conclusion is that because fashion touches your intimate life, it embarrasses people.

Monday, August 20, 2012

News Literacy Project

The News Literacy Project (NLP) is an innovative national educational program that mobilizes seasoned journalists to help middle school and high school students sort fact from fiction in the digital age.
The project teaches students critical-thinking skills that will enable them to be smarter and more frequent consumers and creators of credible information across all media and platforms. It seeks to light a spark of interest in students to seek information that will make them more knowledgeable about their communities, the nation and the world.
The project also aspires to elevate the mission of news literacy nationally through classroom programs, digital media, workshops, public events and the news media itself.

Michael Copps

Our goal should be that every American possesses the skills to discern news from infotainment, fact from opinion, and trustworthy information sources from untrustworthy.

りりィ

 街を去った人よ
 もう何も望まないで
 ふるさとみたいに
 ここに
 戻ることは出来ない
 何処か遠い国で
 安らぎだけを掴む
 それが出来るならば
 ほかはいいじゃ
 ないの
 誰が何をしようとも
 構わないけれど
 私はいる
 このさわがしい
 楽園に

上杉隆

「なぜジャーナリストを休業したのか?」
このような質問を多くの方から頂戴する。いま、この国で「ジャーナリスト」と呼ばれる記者クラブメディア(おもに新聞・テレビ)の記者たちと同業であることに、一線を引くため。これが理由である。
この10年、日本の「ジャーナリズム」なるもののひどさを、私はイヤというほど味わってきた。メディアが国民に対して、平気で「ウソ」をつく。しかも、みずからは真相を知りながら、あたかも知らないフリをして、事実と異なる報道を行うのだ。多くの国民は、そのようなメディアの「ウソ」に騙(だま)されている。
私がジャーナリストを休業する決意を固めたのは、東日本大震災ならびに福島第一原発事故が起こった「3・11」の直後だった。マスメディアによる「ウソ」がこれほど罪深いものであったことは、戦時中を除いて、はたしてこれまであっただろうか。
「3・11」後の混乱状況に際して、マスメディアは情報を隠蔽し、国民を欺き、国家の信頼を著しく毀損した。しかも当事者たちは、みずからの行為の意味も、それが後世に与えた影響の甚大さも、まったく自覚していない。
それでも、彼らは「ジャーナリスト」なのである。

日高敏隆

母性愛というのは動物行動学では否定されてます。ようするに、自分の血のつながった子孫をとにかくたくさん残したい。それには赤ん坊だから育てなくちゃいけないんで、一生懸命育てる。その時に、一体それは誰の得になるのかという問題ね。母親にしてみれば自分の血のつながった子孫が増えてもらいたいというのは母親の得になります。そのためには育てなければいけない。しかも、その時その赤ん坊は自分が生んだ子供だから絶対自分の血がつながった赤ん坊なんだ。これを育て上げないと自分の子孫は増えないわけですね。そのために一生懸命やってるんで、本当は自分のためにやってることで、赤ん坊が可愛くてやってることじゃないんだということになっちゃうんです。
だから母性愛なんてなくて、それは母親のエゴである、ということになってるんです。その証拠、という例があってね。これ、随分残酷な話なんですが、ネコが子供を生むでしょ、5匹ぐらい。その中で1匹だけどういうわけかわからないけど、小さくてヒヨヒヨしてるのがいる。そうするとたいていの場合、母ネコはヒヨヒヨしてる子ネコには乳をやらないんです。3日ぐらいやらないと飢え死にしちゃうんです。飢え死にするとたいてい母ネコはその子ネコを食っちゃいます。自分の子供ですよ。で、これはなんだ、と。残酷といえば残酷なんだけど、でも、この母ネコにすれば自分の子供が可愛いんじゃなくて、自分の血のつながった子孫ができるだけ増えて欲しいと思ってるから、今このヒヨヒヨした子供に自分の限りある乳をやっても多分育たないだろうと。そうするとその乳をやったことは無駄な投資になる。だからそれは見殺しにして、乳は将来見通しのある4匹の丈夫なほうにやる。しかも死んだ子ネコをおなかの中で育てるのに、相当な栄養をやっている、つまりコストがかかってますから、それを取り返すべく食べちゃう。そのタンパク質を取り返してミルクにしてちゃんとした子供に与える。というようなことまでやっているのではないか。このどこに母性愛があるか。
そういう例が実は非常にたくさんあるんです。だから母性愛なんていうのは人間がヒョイと考えた、ある種の美しい幻想にすぎないのではないかということになってるんですよ。

Richard Dawkins



I would mind more if I could claim that The Selfish Gene had become severely outmoded and superseded. Unfortunately (from one point of view) I cannot. Details have changed and factual examples burgeoned mightily. But, with an exception that I shall discuss in a moment, there is little in the book that I would rush to take back now, or apologise for. Arthur Cain, late Professor of Zoology at Liverpool and one of my inspiring tutors at Oxford in the sixties, described The Selfish Gene in 1976 as a ‘young man's book’. He was deliberately quoting a commentator on A. J. Ayer's Language Truth and Logic. I was flattered by the comparison, although I knew that Ayer had recanted much of his first book and I could hardly miss Cain's pointed implication that I should, in the fullness of time, do the same.

李时珍

竹内久美子

女は、身長が狩りに及ぼす影響も、またそれが狩リの成果であることも、ほとんどわかっていなかっただろう。ただわけもなく背の高い男に惹かれてしまう女は、結果的に十分な食べ物を手に入れ、子を多く残せたのである。
男の身長はかつての「月収」だった。愚かなことに、女はまだそれにこだわっているというわけだ。

Sunday, August 19, 2012

现代金报

Riley Woodford

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. It’s a myth, but it’s remarkable how many people believe it. It’s a complete urban legend. It blew out of proportion based on a Disney documentary in the ’50s, and that brought it to the mainstream.
In 1958 Walt Disney produced “White Wilderness,” part of the studio’s “True Life Adventure” series. “White Wilderness” featured a segment on lemmings, detailing their strange compulsion to commit mass suicide.
According to a 1983 investigation by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer Brian Vallee, the lemming scenes were faked. The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers. The epic “lemming migration” was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on snow covered lazy-Susan style turntable.
“White Wilderness” was filmed in Alberta, Canada, a landlocked province, and not on location in lemmings’ natural habitat. There are about 20 lemming species found in the circumpolar north – but evidently not in that area of Alberta. So the Disney people bought lemmings from Inuit children a couple provinces away in Manitoba and staged the whole sequence.
Do they really kill themselves?’ No. The answer is unequivocal, no they don’t.

English mother

As my mother used to say, “If all the other boys jumped off a bridge, would you too?”

François Rabelais

“Malfaisant, pipeur, buveur”, Panurge sait et entend tout faire, notamment des farces ; par exemple il fait plonger les moutons de Dindenault dans la mer en y jetant le premier, que les autres suivent bêtement.

Beyoncé Knowles

Diane Warren

I wanna leave my footprints on the sands of time Know there was something that, and something that I left behind When I leave this world, I’ll leave no regrets Leave something to remember, so they won’t forget I was here I lived, I loved I was here I did, I’ve done, everything that I wanted And it was more than I thought it would be I will leave my mark so everyone will know I was here I want to say I lived each day, until I die And know that I meant something in, somebody’s life The hearts I have touched, will be the proof that I leave That I made a difference, and this world will see

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Shaun Tan

ポール・ケネディ

世界中で最も魅力のない求人広告があるとしたら、次のようなものに違いない。
「急募・約1700万平方キロ――その大半は居住不能――に及ぶ国土の経営及び改革に必要な多くの資質を持つ人物。ただしこの国は、深刻な人口減少と、弱体化した軍隊と、巨大な社会・環境問題と、国内の人種的な不和と、嫉妬(しっと)深い隣国を抱え、アジアと地球規模のパワー・バランスの面でも、恐らく急速な地位低下に向かっている」

Paul Kennedy

We should abjure our pathetic obsessiveness with political personalities, and ridicule talk-show-host sensationalism for being what it is: an insult to our intelligence. Surely the media has the duty to report accurately, but also to put things in context. Does the coming of the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition herald a new age in Britain’s long history? One doubts it, since they in their turn have to grapple with the massive deficits, the overstretched armed forces, the immigration issue and the contorted relationship with Europe. Does Putin’s rule in Russia make much of a difference? What can even his authoritarian government do to alter the mass alcoholism, the demographic disintegration, the mutterings of the minorities and the incompetencies of a non-incentive social order?

尹健次

日本の近現代史全体からするとき、「政治改革」や「政界再編」の「課題」にも示される今日の戦後日本の転換期において、総体としての日本人が抱え込んでいる問題の本質は、たんなる戦後体制の再編ではなく、世界の民族問題につながる「日本の民族問題」であるという認識が不可欠である。実際、「国際貢献」という言葉の使い方一つをみても、そこには戦前の「聖戦」につながりうる「民族幻想」的な響きがあり、その奥底には無自覚なままの優越感が潜んでいると言ってよい。その意味では、今日の日本人にとっては、民族的アイデンティティの形成が国家主義指向の政治勢力に利用されないためにも、まず事実として存在し、生活を営んできた民族集団としての「日本人」のありようを問い直すための努力を積み重ねることが必要であろう。すなわち、日本そのものが今、国際社会のなかで深刻なアイデンティティ・クライシスに陥っているなかで、日本人にとってはなによりも、抽象的に観念化された国家、人びとを威圧する国家に収斂されない生き方を切り開いていくことが重要である。そうしたことからするとき、激動する世界と日本の現実を正しく理解し、そのなかでの日本人の正確な自己認識を確保するためには、近現代日本の民族的アイデンティティのありようがいかなるものであったかを検証しておくことが、きわめて重要な今日的課題であると思われる。

倉本由香利

エリートという言葉に嫌悪感を持つ人は多い。でも私としては、もともとエリートという言葉は、何らかラッキーなものを持つ人は、その力を他の人たちのために活かしていくことができる人たちである、というところから来た言葉であることにこだわった。
それに、全ての人に「グローバルに働ける人材になれ!」というのは、ちょっと嘘ではないか、と思ったのだ。全ての日本人が、多様な文化的背景を持つ人々と働いて、その彼らの能力を活かして、仕事をしていくことが出来るわけではない。努力は必要だが、その努力が出来る環境にある人、小さな頃から教育の機会を与えられた人、若いときからグローバルな環境で働くことが出来て、その力がついている人のほうが、グローバルに活躍するのにはギャップが少ないだろう。
ノブリス・オブリージュという言葉があるように、教育や仕事の上での機会を与えられ、グローバルに働く能力がある人は、その力を発揮してグローバルに活躍することで、そうでない人の雇用を生み出したり、社会的基盤を支える屋台骨としての日本経済に貢献したりすることが求められるのではないか。
グローバルな環境で働くことを楽しいと思うグローバル・エリートたちが増えることが、ひいては日本経済の再成長につながっていくと思っている。

Pussy Riot

Paul McCartney

I’m writing to show my support for you at this difficult time. I would like you to know that I very much hope the Russian authorities would support the principle of free speech for all their citizens and not feel that they have to punish you for your protest. Many people in the civilized world are allowed to voice their opinions and as long as they do not hurt anyone in doing so I believe this is the best way forward for all societies. I hope you can stay strong and believe that I and many others like me who believe in free speech will do everything in our power to support you and the idea of artistic freedom.

Reuters

Pussy Riot verdict draws criticism around globe

European nations and the US, as well as some celebrities, voiced sharp criticism of Russia on Friday over jail sentences handed to three members of the punk band Pussy Riot who protested against President Vladimir Putin in a church.

天池

tut.by

Friday, August 17, 2012

Lisa Hannigan

Alain Badiou, Nicolas Truong

L’amour ne peut pas se réduire à la rencontre, car il est une construction. […] Le point le plus intéressant, au fond, ce n’est pas la question de l’extase des commencements. Il y a bien sûr une extase des commencements, mais un amour, c’est avant tout une construction durable. Disons que l’amour est une aventure obstinée. Le côté aventureux est nécessaire, mais ne l’est pas moins l’obstination. Laisser tomber au premier obstacle, à la première divergence sérieuse, aux premiers ennuis, n’est qu’une défiguration de l’amour. Un amour véritable est celui qui triomphe durablement, parfois durement, des obstacles que l’espace, le monde et le temps lui proposent.

azure

(Why is “bra” singular and “panties” plural?)
As pointed out above, bra is short for brassiere which is a word for a single object, whereas any item of clothing that covers both legs separately is referred to in plural as it comprises two leg coverings put together. Eg. trousers, pants, pantaloons, the full grammar being “a pair of pants”. Underwear is a shortened version of these, therefore is plural, eg. panties, knickers, undies.
Strangely enough you cannot refer to a single trouser or a single pant, it is “trouser-leg” or “pant-leg”!

Wikipedia

Many songs in various languages have been based on the “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman” melody. In English, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star“, the “Alphabet Song“, and a variant of it is used for “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”. It is also the basis of the Scots song Coulter’s Candy. The German Christmas carol “Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann” also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol “Hull a pelyhes fehér hó”, the Dutch “Altijd is Kortjakje ziek”, the Spanish “Campanita del Lugar,” and the Turkish “Daha Dun Annemizin.”
Several classical compositions have been inspired by this tune:

  • Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je Maman”
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”
  • Franz Joseph Haydn, The Surprise Symphony
  • Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals, 12th movement (Fossiles)
  • Ernő Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Tune, op.25 (1914)
  • Erwin Schulhoff, Ten Variations on ‘Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman’ and Fugue
  • John Corigliano, The Mannheim Rocket
  • Franz Liszt, Album Leaf: “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman”
  • Theodor von Schacht, 3rd movement of his clarinet concerto in B flat major
  • Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck, Variations on “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman”
  • Jean-Baptiste Cardon (1760–1803), Variations on “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman”

Plutarch

For the beauty of Cleopatra, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased …

Φρύνη

Οργανώνοντας μια θρησκευτική τελετή προς τιμήν ενός θρακικού θεού, κατηγορήθηκε από έναν παλαιό εραστή της ότι προσπαθούσε να εισάγει στην Αθήνα μια ξένη θεότητα και μέσω αυτής να διαφθείρει τις νεαρές Αθηναίες. Στο δικαστήριο ανέλαβε την υπεράσπισή της ο ρήτορας Υπερείδης, ο οποίος επίσης διατηρούσε σχέσεις μαζί της. Σύμφωνα με την αφήγηση του Αθηναίου, όταν πια η υπόθεση φαινόταν χαμένη για τη Φρύνη, ο Υπερείδης τραβηξε με ορμή τα ενδύματα της κοπέλας, αποκαλύπτοντας το γυμνό της σώμα στο δικαστικό σώμα. Τα μέλη του εντυπωσιάστηκαν τόσο – σύμφωνα με μια εκδοχή η φυσική ομορφιά θεωρούταν σημάδι της εύνοιας των θεών την εποχή εκείνη – που την αθώωσαν πανηγυρικά. Ωστόσο ο ρήτορας εκδιώχτηκε από τον Άρειο Πάγο.

David A. Stockman

America has some of the highest labor costs in the world, and saddles workers and businesses with $1 trillion per year in job-destroying payroll taxes. We need a national sales tax — a consumption tax, like the dreaded but efficient value-added tax … Thirty years of Republican apostasy — a once grand party’s embrace of the welfare state, the warfare state and the Wall Street-coddling bailout state — have crippled the engines of capitalism and buried us in debt. Mr. Ryan’s sonorous campaign rhetoric about shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to “job creators” (read: the top 2 percent) will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Robin West

These new rights — a right to lethal self defense and to own the means to carry it out, a right not to buy insurance where doing so would resolve a collective health care crisis and a right to “home school” free of all state regulation — collectively suggest the imagining of a new rights paradigm. They are not just liberal rights of self-expression. They are radically and, I believe, deeply tragic anti-collectivist rights to exit core parts of the civic compact, usually by inactivity — not buying insurance, not sending one’s children to school, not surrendering the means of one’s own self protection to a police force — that undermines, sometimes near fatally, the civic attempt to solve collective problems collectively through the project of government. The children in public schools suffer when the parents of over two million children claim a right to “homeschool,” thereby justifying diminished resources for education and sacrificing parental and communal good will. All of us, including the police, are endangered by the proliferation of weaponry among citizens when half the country is armed. And the insured, as well as uninsured, are impoverished by the refusal of the healthy to participate in an insurance mandate that would reduce costs for all.

Rakesh Khurana

Unforeseen by the intellectual architects of the revolution in economics and finance was that by delegitimating the old managerialist order and turning executives, in theory and practice, into free agents who owed their primary loyalty to a group who assumed no reciprocal obligations to them, they had cut managers loose from any moorings not just to the organizations they led or the communities in which those organizations were embedded but even, in the end, to shareholders themselves. The resulting corporate oligarchy had no role-defined obligation other than to self-interest. The unintended consequences . . . include the string of corporate scandals involving misstated earnings, backdated stock options, and various exotic variations on these themes that have as their common thread the enrichment of individual executives at the expense of shareholders, employees, and the public trust in the essential integrity of the system on which democratic capitalism itself depends.

Associated Press

Islamist extremists have targeted two Tunisian Olympic medalists for behavior and dress seen as un-Islamic. Radicals on social media networks called on the government to strip Habiba Ghribi, the first Tunisian woman to win an Olympic medal, of her nationality because her running gear was too revealing. She won the silver in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.


And a Facebook campaign by extremist group Ansar al Chariaa is targeting swimmer Oussama Mellouli for drinking juice before racing during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Mellouli won gold in the 10-kilometer marathon and bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Economist

The Securities and Exchange Commission (security-based swaps) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the rest), face a huge task. The CFTC alone has proposed more than 1,000 pages of rules, with lots more required by a July deadline. On top of this they have to draw up “conforming” amendments in areas where existing rules have to be reworked. No wonder JPMorgan has 350 people trying to get their heads round Title VII.
The regulators get high marks for seeking input. Unusually, they requested comments before they had even proposed any rules (they have received nearly 5,000). ...
Dealers are still miffed about some of the regulators' proposed rules. As some interpret it, one would impose on them a fiduciary duty towards pension funds and municipalities. ...
Banks argue that some rules designed to boost transparency will instead sap liquidity. ...
End-users fret about possibly having to start stumping up initial margin on OTC trades despite assurances from the CFTC's chairman that genuine hedgers will remain exempt. Either way, they can expect dealers to pass on costs as their own capital requirements rise.

Jeffrey Manns

The credit rating agencies are taking advantage of the country’s financial problems to increase their own political power. They want to ensure that regulators do not reduce their autonomy and influence.
Their strategy is brilliant. They are not piling on all at once by downgrading the United States in concert. Standard & Poor’s is the bad cop for now, taking the first swipe at the United States last Friday, and seeing its influence confirmed by the stock market’s dramatic reaction. Moody’s and Fitch are playing the good cop — exercising restraint about a potential downgrade, yet still flexing their muscles by criticizing the government both publicly and behind the scenes.

Ricardo Patino

Today we’ve received a threat by the United Kingdom, a clear and written threat that they could storm our embassy in London if Ecuador refuses to hand in Julian Assange.

AndreÏ Makine

Je pensai, avant de m’endormir, que venant en France, Charlotte essaierait de comprendre ce qu’était devenue la littérature dont quelques vieux livres représentaient pour elle, en Sibérie, un minuscule archipel français. Et j’imaginais qu’en entrant, un soir, dans l’appartement où elle vivrait, je remarquerais sur le bord d’une table ou sur l’appui d’une fenêtre – un livre ouvert, un livre récent que Charlotte lirait en mon absence. Je me pencherais au-dessus des pages et mon regard tomberait sur ces lignes: Ce fut en effet le matin le plus doux de cet hiver-là. Il faisait du soleil comme aux premiers jours d’avril. Le givre fondait et l’herbe mouillée brillait comme humectée de rosée… Ayant passé mon unique matinée à revoir mille choses, avec une mélancolie toujours croissante, sous les nuages d’hiver-j’avais oublié ce vieux jardin et ce berceau de vigne à l’ombre duquel s’était décidée ma vie… Vivre à l’image de cette beauté, c’est cela que je voudrais savoir faire. La netteté de ce pays, la transparence, la profondeur et le miracle de cette rencontre de l’eau, de la pierre et de la lumière, voilà la seule connaissance, la première morale. Cette harmonie n’est pas illusoire. Elle est réelle, et devant elle je ressens la nécessité de la parole…

Anne Bertoni

Vivre à l’image de cette beauté, c’est cela que je voudrais savoir faire. La netteté de ce pays, la transparence, la profondeur et le miracle de cette rencontre de l’eau, de la pierre et de la lumière, voilà la seule connaissance, la première morale. Cette harmonie n’est pas illusoire. Elle est réelle, et devant elle je ressens la nécessité de la parole.

Pierre Loti

Ayant passé mon unique matinée à revoir mille choses, avec une mélancolie toujours croissante, sous ces nuages d’hiver, – j’avais oublié ce vieux jardin et ce berceau de vigne à l’ombre duquel s’était décidée ma vie, et je voulus y courir, à la dernière minute avant le départ de la voiture qui allait m’emporter pour jamais.

Alain-Fournier

La cour était déserte encore lorsqu’il descendit. Il fit quelques pas et se trouva comme transporté dans une journée de printemps. Ce fut en effet le matin le plus doux de cet hiver-là. Il faisait du soleil comme aux premiers jours d’avril. Le givre fondait et l’herbe mouillée brillait comme humectée de rosée. Dans les arbres, plusieurs petits oiseaux chantaient et de temps à autre une brise tiédie coulait sur le visage du promeneur.

Nike

Ross McRoss

Rob Hefferan

Holstee

This is your life. Do What you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching tv. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over analyzing, life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some oppurtunities only comes once, seize them. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating. Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion.

徳山二郎

日本人は、「人間悪」を正面から見据えて、それに厳しく対処できるような強さがなく、「悪」を犯した者に対する処罰、間違った意思決定者に対する処罰が、欧米社会と比べて極めて微温的である。
アメリカではリーダーたる者は巨悪にひるむことなく対決する。また制度面でも社会悪に対する処罰はたいへん厳しい。
社会の悪を暴くべき新聞やその他のマスコミも、各官庁が無料で提供している記者クラブにたむろして、政府発表を疑うことなく、そのまま記事にしている例が多い。太平洋戦争中、当局の報道規制があったとしても、日本を戦争に突入させようとする政府指導者たちの間違いや無策を批判したり、いさめた新聞社は一社もなかった。戦後も、マスコミの時流に阿る報道姿勢は変わらない。世論の動向に疑問を呈すべきマスコミが、国民のムードや気分に合わせて記事を書いているとしか思えない。
日本人はもっと真正面から「人間悪」を見つめ、その悪を抑える政治、社会、経済のシステムをしっかり組織し、築いていかなければならない。
特にここ数年、日本人の価値観は、自己中心的になり、「自分に得か損か」で事を決めるようになり、危うきには近寄らないようになってしまった。しかし、絶望してはならない。いま一度、日本人の精神の本源に立ち戻り、倫理、道徳や政治思想を高度なものにし、理想に近いものにするよう努力すべきである。
「身を殺して仁をなす」ということだ。そして、今こそ、歴史的反省の上に立って「千万人と雖も吾往かん」という意気込みで、自分が正しいと信じたことならば、どこまでも主張する日本人が一人でも多く輩出することを祈らずにはいられない。

Supreme Court of the United States

Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good, as well as by evil, men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, but, at other times and places, the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Larry Diamond

Over the past three decades the world has been transformed. In 1974, nearly three-quarters of all countries were dictatorships; today, more than half are democracies. Yet recent efforts to promote democracy have stumbled, and many democratic governments are faltering. Why?

Mohamed Kaouche

“Democracy is…to live in freedom.”

Kaveh Baghdadchi

“Democracy is the state of being free to act and look different from the way others do.”

Barak Ravid

In general, Netanyahu embraced Romney as no Israeli prime minister has ever before embraced a candidate running against an incumbent U.S. president: Aside from their working meeting in the morning, Netanyahu also hosted Romney and his wife and sons for dinner at his official residence.

Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo

Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine counterintelligence threat.

The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies.

Zvi Bar’el

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s forcing out of two top Mubarak-era defense officials on Sunday, along with his stripping of the military commander’s power to enact laws and declare war, are seen in Egypt as necessary steps to complete the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak as president.

Josef Gotlib

Я готов утверждать, что “интервью” Григрия Перельмна, опубликованное в КП – не настоящее. В нем слишком много нестыковок, противоречий и глупостей. Я не знаю, выдумано ли оно автором заметки, человеком, который сдал его автору или человеком, который представлялся Перельманом. Мне непонятно, как такое могло появиться в одной из самых массовых газет без надлежащей верификации, и как его без сомнений перепечатали и использовали други СМИ, не задав вопросов.
Часть важных нестыковок указана Машей Гессен в “Снобе”, за что ей спасибо. Мы исходим из того, что Перельман очень хороший математик и, как следствие, обладает четкостью формулировок и пониманием своей науки. …

이진명, 신헌철

‘레임덕(Lame Duck).’ 불구가 된 오리란 뜻이니 어감부터 썩 달갑지 않다. 임기 말 권력 누수현상을 가리키는 말로 미국에서 재선에 성공한 대통령이 집권 7~8년차에 접어들며 권력 집중도가 빠르게 약화되는 상황을 지칭했다. 5년 단임제의 대통령제를 채택하고 있는 한국에선 레임덕이 5년마다 돌림병처럼 번지곤 했다. 게다가 레임덕 기간도 갈수록 늘어나는 모양새다. 과거엔 1년쯤 되던 레임덕 기간이 최근엔 집권 4년차면 어김없이 찾아온다. 어느 대통령이든 2년 안팎을 사실상 레임덕에 시달린다. 이쯤 되면 한국 대통령의 임기는 5년이 아니라 3~4년에 불과하다는 비아냥거림이 마냥 허언은 아니다. 레임덕이 심해지면 ‘데드덕(Dead Duck)’ 또는 ‘식물 대통령’ 신세가 된다.

김성수

이명박 대통령이 일본군 위안부, 역사교과서 왜곡 등 과거사 문제와 관련해 연일 외교상의 관례를 넘어서는 강경 발언을 쏟아 내고 있어 그 배경을 놓고 관심이 쏠리고 있다.
사실상의 임기를 불과 4개월 남짓 남겨둔 이 대통령이 과거사 등 대일 현안과 관련해 이례적으로 강도 높은 발언을 연일 쏟아 내는 것에 대해서 비판적인 목소리가 많다. 집권 내내 대일 외교문제에서 실용주의 노선을 추구하다가 임기 말년에 갑작스레 비판적인 태도로 돌변한 것은 레임덕(임기 말 권력 누수현상)에 시달리는 국내 정치상황 때문이라는 지적이 나온다. 실제로 이 대통령에 대한 국정지지도는 최근 20% 밑으로까지 떨어졌지만, 이 대통령의 독도 방문에 대해서는 80% 이상의 국민이 찬성할 정도로 지지를 받고 있다. 때문에 이 대통령이 과거사 문제를 전면에 내세우면서 레임덕을 돌파하는 수단으로 사용하고 있다는 비판이 나온다.
문정인 연세대 정치외교학과 교수는 “이 대통령의 독도 방문에 이어 연이은 대일 강경 발언은 전혀 이해가 안 되는 대목”이라면서 “대통령의 독도 방문에 대한 국민적 지지도가 84%까지 오른 여론 조사에 고무돼 ‘일본 때리기’를 하면 국민 지지도가 오를 것이라고 생각한 것 같다.”고 말했다. 문 교수는 “전반적인 외교의 큰 그림을 보면 남북관계와 한·중 관계가 나빠서 한·일 관계라도 챙겨야 하는데 대통령의 최근 언행은 한·일 간 마찰음을 심화시켜 이 정부의 향후 외교적 포석에 악영향을 줄 것”이라고 내다봤다.

平山満紀

日本はアダルトビデオ(AV)大国として世界的に知られる。そんなに性に関心の強い人たちが一方でセックスレスに陥っているとはどういうことか、外国の人からはよく不思議がられる。AVの内容や見られ方に、日本では独自の特徴があるようだ。
西欧人の恋人同士は自分の性的な好みや感じ方をとことん話し合うし、身体でも確かめ合う。西欧人にとって、セックスとはこのようにコミュニケーション、それも特別に価値のあるコミュニケーションだといえる。AVの内容も、いわゆる洋物は、男女両方が主体的で、性的なコミュニケーションを楽しむものが主流だ。
日本の男性たちは、パートナーがいてもAVを見続ける人が少なくなく、そのことが彼女とのけんかの原因になったり、彼女が男性はそういうものだと諦めたりするとよく聞く。日本のAVは男性目線で女性だけが被写体になっていることが多く、女性は受動的に描かれ、男性の女性に対する思い込みにあふれている。コミュニケーションというよりは、男性の妄想世界の表現といえる。
AV女優のような反応をしないといって男性が女性を非難したり、女性にとっては苦痛な行為を行うなど、男性がAVから受け取る思い込みの弊害は、女性がかねてより指摘してきた。女性が求めるのはふれあいや関係性なのに、男性にそれが通じないというしばしば聞く悩みも、自己完結的な妄想世界の肥大と関係があるだろう。

橋下徹

  • 弱者切り捨てはだめ、格差拡大はダメ、競争はダメ、このような甘い言葉こそ本当に危険。他者に依存しすぎる日本の今のあしき流れを断ち、『自立する個人』『自立する地域』『自立する国家』をつくりたい。
  • 9条がなかった時は、他人のために汗をかこう、場合によっては命の危険も負担せざるを得ないとやっていた。
  • 「今の日本の政治に必要なのは独裁。独裁と言われるぐらいの力だ。 → 今の日本に必要なのは決定できる民主主義である。権力者が暴走しない、しかし決定できる仕組み。これこそ民主主義の世で叡智を結集して作らなければならないのである。日本の政治・行政で一から作り直さなければならない。
  • 生徒が集まらない学校をずっと置いておいても仕方がない。 。。。 本当に家庭の事情で苦しいというなら通学定期代くらいバイトして稼ぎゃあいい。授業料までただにしてるんですから。通学代が出せないから地元に高校を残さないといけないなんて、そんな理屈は通らない。
  • 交渉とは不満足の分配作業だ。
  • まったく無関係な比喩によって、相手の主張が間違っているかのような錯覚に陥らせる。
  • 相手のいちばんの弱みを察知し、そこにつけ込んでこそ、勝機が見えてくる。

Abby Wambach, Homare Sawa

Homare Sawa and Abby Wambach after the gold medal match, smiling as they talk about the match and praising the other on a well-played game.

Mohamed Farah, Rene Herrera

Every runner is a winner here.

Erick Barrondo

Me voy a sentir el hombre más feliz del mundo si mañana alguien deja una pistola o un cuchillo y se acerca a un estadio y lo cambia por un par de tenis para hacer deporte.

Adachi Museum Garden

Bill Murray

Scarlett Johansson

Vivian

Hashi

In the 60s, a Japanese song became incredibly popular not only in Japan but across the world. In Japan, it was called 上を向いて歩こう or roughly, “I Will Walk Looking Up.” It was an emotional song about the defeat of a popular Japanese protest movement against American military bases in Japan.
But people in English-speaking countries renamed it “Sukiyaki,” after a tasty Japanese dish which has absolutely nothing to do with what the song is about.
Little did we know that the Japanese have been exacting their revenge over our dumb translation for years, butchering American movie titles behind our backs.
  • Napoleon Dynamite → バス男 (Bus Man)
  • Army of Darkness → キャプテン・スーパーマーケット (Captain Supermarket)
  • Karate Kid → ベスト・キッド (Best Kid)
  • You Only Live Twice → 007は二度死ぬ (007 Dies Twice)
  • Quantum of Solace → 007 慰めの報酬 (007 Remuneration of Comfort)
  • Ratatouille → レミーのおいしいレストラン (Remi’s Delicious Restaurant)
  • Almost Famous → あの頃ペニー・レインと (Back in Those Days with Penny Lane)
  • Up  → カールじいさんの空飛ぶ家 (Old Carl’s Flying House)
  • Fast Five → ワイルド・スピード MEGA MAX (Wild Speed: Mega Max)
  • Waterloo Bridge → 哀愁 (Melancholy)
  • Dodsworth → 孔雀夫人 (Madam Peacock)
  • The Longest Day → 史上最大の作戦 (The Largest Operation in History)
  • The Thomas Crown Affair → 華麗なる賭け (Splendid Bet)
  • Officer and Gentleman → 愛と青春の旅立ち (Departure of Love and Youth)
  • Bonnie and Clyde → 俺たちに明日はない (There will be no tomorrow for us)
  • Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid → 明日に向かって撃て! (Fire at Tomorrow)

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne

Monday, August 13, 2012

European Union

Any person should have the right to have personal data concerning them rectified and a ‘right to be forgotten’ where the retention of such data is not in compliance with this Regulation. In particular, data subjects should have the right that their personal data are erased and no longer processed, where the data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which the data are collected or otherwise processed, where data subjects have withdrawn their consent for processing or where they object to the processing of personal data concerning them or where the processing of their personal data otherwise does not comply with this Regulation. This right is particularly relevant, when the data subject has given their consent as a child, when not being fully aware of the risks involved by the processing, and later wants to remove such personal data especially on the Internet. However, the further retention of the data should be allowed where it is necessary for historical, statistical and scientific research purposes, for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, for exercising the right of freedom of expression, when required by law or where there is a reason to restrict the processing of the data instead of erasing them.

Manuel Ansede

Internet no olvida. Un subdirector de un colegio puede no recordar que unos años antes fue multado por orinar en la calle, pero la sanción en un boletín oficial será lo primero que encuentren sus alumnos cuando tecleen su nombre en Google. Este es uno de los 93 casos en los que la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos ha pedido al buscador que elimine informaciones de usuarios. Cinco de estas resoluciones, las primeras recurridas por Google, llegan mañana a la Audiencia Nacional.
Cinco magistrados escucharán los argumentos de las dos partes. Entre los que no quieren salir en Google, hay un funcionario de prisiones que apareció en el Boletín Oficial del Estado en 1996 y 1998 por una sanción disciplinaria y teme que sus datos personales sean obtenidos por terroristas de ETA con una simple búsqueda en internet. En otro caso, el diario El País informó en 1991 de una imprudencia temeraria presuntamente cometida por un ciudadano, que fue absuelto en 1993. El periódico no tiene que retirar la noticia de su hemeroteca, porque se ampara en la libertad de información veraz, pero la agencia pide a Google que no incluya este suceso en sus búsquedas para evitar “la difusión masiva de información personal”.

NHK

Anna Justice

全日本民主医療機関連合会

私たちは、いのちの平等を掲げ、地域住民の切実な要求に応える医療を実践し、介護と福祉の事業へ活動を広げてきました。患者の立場に立った親切でよい医療を進め、生活と労働から疾病をとらえ、いのちや健康にかかわるその時代の社会問題にとりくんできました。また、共同組織と共に生活向上と社会保障の拡充、平和と民主主義の実現のために運動してきました。私たちは、営利を目的とせず、事業所の集団所有を確立し、民主的運営をめざして活動しています。

  • 人権を尊重し、共同のいとなみとしての医療と介護・福祉をすすめ、人びとのいのちと健康を守ります
  • 地域・職域の人びとと共に、医療機関、福祉施設などとの連携を強め、安心して住み続けられるまちづくりをすすめます
  • 学問の自由を尊重し、学術・文化の発展に努め、地域と共に歩む人間性豊かな専門職を育成します
  • 科学的で民主的な管理と運営を貫き、事業所を守り、医療、介護・福祉従事者の生活の向上と権利の確立をめざします
  • 国と企業の責任を明確にし、権利としての社会保障の実現のためにたたかいます
  • 人類の生命と健康を破壊する一切の戦争政策に反対し、核兵器をなくし、平和と環境を守ります